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So, there is now something called Jenkins in the world of Open Source Build Servers and it seems like it’s been around for a few months. Why is this remarkable? Well… Simply because Jenkins = Hudson. I was installing another server with Hudson today following the instructions in my article “Setup – Apache and Hudson” and only when I completed the install did I realise that Hudson is now actually called Jenkins. So, has anything changed? Nope, not really. Why did they decide to make this bold move? I can’t say, other than that there is some speculation that the guys over at Oracle wanted to start charging license fees for the use of Hudson and that the previously known Hudson guys then decided to for Hudson, rename it to Jenkins and to continue with the project in the old Open Source manner. Well, if this is true, then I am glad, because since I started using Hudson/Jenkins I haven’t looked back or had the urge to explore some of the other platforms out there. It simply works 🙂

To top it off, I obviously opted to uninstall Hudson and to install Jenkins and once that was done I thought that it might be a good idea to add/update another article to show you how to install the new Jenkins platform. You can find this article, called “Setup – Apache and Jenkins” here. I’m sure you’ll enjoy Jenkins as much as you’ve enjoyed Hudson and I’m also sure that we can expect to see this project grow in the coming months as we’ve seen it grow from the beginning. I wish them all the luck in their bold move and hope they continue to have fun 🙂 I know we will 🙂

Heads up though, I’m in the process of writing an article on how to use Jenkins as your Build Server runnig Continuous Integration for Ruby projects under Ruby Version Manager (RVM).

I’ve just completed a new article called “Using – Ruby Version Manager RVM” which will be another article that I’ll refresh, change and update on a regular basis. Ruby Version Manager (RVM) is one of the best tools to use when you do Ruby Development seeing that it allows you to run multiple versions of Ruby and Gems together and to switch between these environments in an easy and straightforward way. The idea behind RVM is to have a sand-boxed environment that does not affect your system installs and can be dumped and recreated ad-hoc without having to worry that you’ll be breaking things on your system. By way of Gem Sets it also allows you to weave different Rubies together using different Gems. In all it’s an extremely powerful tool and in my upcoming article where I’ll be going into the use of Bundler and how you can use this powerful Gem with RVM, you should start seeing some of the more powerful management tools at work.

I’ve found RVM to be a life saver and can’t really imagine writing code in Ruby without it. When you start mixing in some of the other tools like Bundler, you’ll see how the power of Ruby and these tools come to life. I hope you enjoy it and that you learn something from the article and if you have feedback on the matter or if you would like me to explore certain point in more detail, please let me know.